Well Potosi is bllody freezing! At 4500 officially the higest city in the world and I dont doubt that. The remains of the decedance this city experienced with the silver rush in 1545 are everywhere. Nowdays the silver is almost gone and the city is a shadow of its former self. Only really tin lead and a mixture of silver and lead left now, the miners work for 8 hours in the mine with only cocoa leaves and pure alcohol to keep them going. When the Spanish arrived soon after the discovery of the silver, amazing colonial buildings were errected and a wonderful plaza created. Most of this is still there today if a little tired. We went on the road less traveled tourist tour of the Cerro Rico, the Rich Mountain. A unique and humbling experinece, boys begin work in the mines around 13 (some as young as 8) and the life expectancy is about 45. A mining career is pretty much voluntary and most boys go into it becasue their fathers did. We had to buy gifts before we arrived for the miners, the usual stuff, cigarettes, cocoa leaves, fizzy drinks, dynamite!!! As you can see from the pics we got suited up head lamps and all and set off. As a country devoid of health and safety optimisum was high...Steve and Fiona (Irish) were our fellow loonies. With tales of black lung ringing in our ears off we went into the sometimes 4ft high mines. Inside was a full on working mine, we had to dodge miners coming by with wheelbarrows full of rock and the experince very real. We visited the miners museum, miner groups (they work in teams) come here every Friday night to pray to Uncle George (man size terracotta statue with a huge whatsit!) for good mining and saftey of the team. Gifts of alcohol and cigarettes are given. Occasionally a miner would get too drunk whilst visiting Uncle George and fall down the shafts to their deaths. Not good. We could hear explosions about 40 meters below us and out guide Johnny told us not to worry...then we heard another explosion...this time our feet shook and bits of rock fell from the celing, Johnny looked worried, told us not to worry and quickly hurried us on...another day in Bolivia! Handing gifts along the way we stopped and joined 4 miners on their tea break. Crawled through a few more tunnels, suffered several bouts of claustraphobia (cant spell) felt totally humbles and glad that us and our nearest and dearest dont have to follow this career path. After 1.5 hours emerged (vertical climb up!) into the fresh air.